Ecclesiastes 1:9 informs us that, “there is nothing new under the sun.” And, as an educator since 2001, I have come to realize that King Solomon knew a thing or two about repackaging when he spoke these words. It is true in education, as it is in other fields such as fashion, that ideas are cyclical. What once was will be again. There are very few truly novel ideas for ensuring that students are learning what we are teaching.
Education scientist (yep, it’s a thing), Sugata Mitra, set about to address a premise. That premise being that across the globe, for various reasons, there are places where good schools and good teachers can’t or simply won’t go. He did an experiment in those very places by introducing a computer connected to highspeed internet. They were placed in the “slums” of India and South Africa. They were mounted at heights designed to encourage young people to engage with them. And, they just watched. In a short amount of time, it became apparent that children will learn what they want to learn. This was obvious as the researchers observed kids creating in a short amount of time with a tool they had never been exposed to. And, not only that, they were teaching each other. The key is they wanted to learn it because they were interested.
Now comes our part. We are blessed to be in a district where we have teachers who are not only gifted in their craft but passionate about what they do, yet we still run into challenges in engaging our students in the tasks at hand. Who can blame us with all we have to compete with today? However, our challenge still stands. Our call is to connect student interest with what we need to impart. This is no simple task. And, the proposal is nothing new. We must become facilitators, providers of opportunity, and then coaches along the way. Again, Mr. Mitra’s research wasn’t necessarily anything new. It was merely a reminder of the ability of our young people when we connect interest with opportunity.